


Whiskey

by bookoftheazuresky



Category: Tales of Xillia
Genre: First Aid, M/M, These children need help, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-30
Updated: 2016-01-30
Packaged: 2018-05-17 04:04:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5853388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookoftheazuresky/pseuds/bookoftheazuresky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“If you put that on my back, you’ll be sorry,” Julius finally said. He meant it, too.</p>
<p>“Don’t tempt me.” Rideaux poured a glass of the amber liquid and held it where Julius could reach it. “I figure three of these and you won’t feel a thing.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Whiskey

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to DivineMadness for the beta.

Julius swore feelingly into the filthy bedspread as Rideaux prodded at the talon gashes on his back. He decided that he officially hated harpies. Well, he had actually decided that half an hour ago when the shadow-hexed dimension had cracked around them, leaving him minus the poison that had been ravaging his body but also quite a bit of blood. Dropping out of a fractured dimension would helpfully strip out any toxins that had gotten into his bloodstream, but wouldn’t do anything for the byproducts his body produced while it had been there, meaning he was weak and shaky from more than blood loss.

“I need to stitch these up,” Rideaux informed him mercilessly. On the one hand, thank heaven for someone who knew more about first aid than he did. On the other, his partner’s bedside manner _sucked._

“Tell me there’s somewhere to buy gels around here,” Julius pleaded. Their trip through the fractured dimension from hell had landed them somewhere out near the Tatalian Abyss, which meant that they had been dumped out in the back of beyond without access to actual medical care. Even being able to rent this room had been a mercy.

“At this hour? Don’t count on it.” They’d used the last of them making sure Julius didn’t bleed to death getting here. Which meant that Rideaux would be working without anything beyond the lingering analgesic effects of the gels. Which had started running thin about _ten minutes ago._

Julius swore again. He’d had smaller injuries stitched up with no painkillers; it was hideous. And the gashes on his back were not, even by generous interpretation, small.

“Let me see if I can get something. I can’t have you squirming around on me.” With that reassurance, he felt Rideaux get up from where he’d been kneeling on the bed and stride to the door.

Julius focused on keeping his breathing slow and even. He wasn’t sure if he was just imagining that the gashes were becoming more and more painful – he knew they hurt, and the gels were wearing off, but not if he could actually detect an increase in the levels of pain he was experiencing. It was perfectly possible that it was all in his head.

A short time later, he heard his partner open the door. “Please tell me you found something.”

“Well,” Rideaux said thoughtfully, “yes and no.” He heard the door shut behind the other teenager. Julius shifted slightly to see that he was flourishing a bottle of cheap Ex Machina whiskey and a glass. Julius stared at him in something like horror, an expression Rideaux met with a wicked smile.

“If you put that on my back, you’ll be sorry,” Julius finally said. He meant it, too.

“Don’t tempt me.” Rideaux poured a glass of the amber liquid and held it where Julius could reach it. “I figure three of these and you won’t feel a thing.”

Julius took it with some trepidation. He was pretty sure alcohol didn’t so much numb the pain as make you care less that it hurt, but he _really wanted_ to not care. He knocked it back as fast as he could.

That was probably a mistake, Julius conceded to himself after he nearly dropped the glass with how hard he was coughing. “Three of these and I’ll be passed out,” he rasped, throat raw from the alcohol and his body’s attempt to get said alcohol out.

“Who says that isn’t the idea?” Rideaux stole the glass and refilled it before handing it back. This time Julius was able to choke it down with much less drama, if not more easily. He couldn’t taste anything beyond the raw flavor of alcohol, and the fumes were making him lightheaded.

He held out the glass for the last refill. “How did you even get this?” Rideaux certainly didn’t look like he was legal, particularly since he was still on the thin side for being seventeen.

“Like people out here care how old you are when you buy drinks. Finish up, I need to get started.” Rideaux started rolling his sleeves up with deft fingers, leaving his forearms bare. Lust started to curl in Julius’ belly alongside the burn of the alcohol. He finished the last drink and pressed the cool glass to his forehead. His head was swimming. Three glasses in less than ten minutes was probably too much.

“Ready?” Rideaux asked from behind him.

Julius set the glass down on the floor beside the bed and squeezed his eyes shut. “Yeah. Do it.”

He started when his partner bracketed his hips with his knees, settling all of his 70-odd kilos onto Julius’ back. “Do try to stay still, this will be tricky enough as it is.”

Julius dug his fingers into the bedspread, trying not to think of _other_ times Rideaux had put him onto his stomach and dragged his fingers over Julius’ back. The thought was banished when the needle went through his skin for the first time.

Julius had been right when he thought that alcohol didn’t really do anything about the pain. Instead he was just disconnected enough from the feeling of Rideaux swiftly setting stitches into the torn skin that he could hold still. He tried to focus on his breathing, on the opening and closing of his hands on the cloth he was lying on, not on the steady hands at his back.

He was dizzy and shivering when Rideaux shifted his weight back. “One down,” his partner murmured. “Still with me?”

Julius made a weak noise of assent. Rideaux exhaled somewhere behind him, then Julius felt his weight disappear. He heard the sound of the faucet in the tiny bathroom being turned on, then a few steps and Rideaux was pressing a cool glass to his forehead. He slitted his eyes open to see his partner kneeling in front of him.

“On second thought, maybe giving you a little less was a better idea,” Rideaux said contemplatively. This was positively affectionate from his partner, so Julius took it in the spirit in which it was intended. He let Rideaux coax most of the water down his throat, then said, “Can we get this over with?”

Rideaux favored him with a slash of a smile and kissed him briskly. A moment later he was once again settled under his partner’s warm weight. “Ready?”

Julius murmured his assent, pressing his face back down as Rideaux moved on to the shallower cuts.

By the time the last of the stitches had been set, Julius was lightheaded and semi-conscious. He vaguely felt the slide of fingers across his back as Rideaux checked his work. “I’m done,” he announced. “Go ahead and pass out now.”

“Now he tells me,” Julius muttered, well on his way to doing just that.

~

Julius woke up to a screaming headache and bright stripes of pain down his back. He attempted to open his eyes, then hissed in pain as light stabbed him through the retinas, making his stomach rebel. He snapped them shut and took stock of his physical condition. Bruised sides from getting thrown around the small canyons of the divergence catalyst’s hiding spot, scraped hands from grabbing on to ledges to get up to said canyons (he needed gloves, this kept happening), the aforementioned talon gashes on his back, now stitched up, and, of course, a hangover from hell. Not the worst he’d been after leaving a fractured dimension, though it could be much better.

Rideaux was a warm shape to his left, his breathing even with the rhythm of sleep. Julius gingerly turned his head in that direction and cracked his eyes open. His partner looked well enough, his head surrounded by a puddle of dark and red-dyed hair. He’d tugged his legs up to his chest as if to ward away the cold, which Julius had discovered was his usual sleeping position if they weren’t entwined together. It was disarmingly cute of him, though Julius was perfectly aware it had less than cute reasons behind it.

In fact, disarmingly cute was a good description of Rideaux sleeping. He was one of the most catlike people Julius had ever met; elegant, moody, independent, contrary to a fault, and occasionally just plain mean. He’d curl up in Julius’ arms like he belonged there, but hold him for a moment too long and Julius risked his claws. Maybe being raised with his grandfather’s cats addled his brain – Julius loved felines, and the fact that his partner shared so many traits with the species charmed him, which wasn’t exactly a sensible reaction.

Considering that his very life had depended on his partner more times than he could easily count, it was probably inevitable that they had ended up in bed together. Julius was hoping that that they would _stay_ in bed together. Two years. It was the only thing Julius could hold onto some days, his relationship with his prickly partner and his continuing prayer that Ludger would never be like either of them. Origin, let Ludger never end up like this, stitched up in a hotel room in the middle of nowhere by the lover that could be his rival next week.

On that thought, Julius carefully got his arms braced and lifted himself up, the cuts on his back complaining all the way. He got himself levered up to a sitting position, then prodded at the stitches he could reach from over his shoulder.

“Stop that,” Rideaux husked. Julius turned to look at him. His shifting must have woken him up; Rideaux was scrubbing at his face with the heel of his palm. He blinked gold eyes up at Julius. “I put those in, I don’t want to redo them.”

“I don’t want to have them redone, so we are on the same page there.” Rideaux was still languid from sleep, his motions slow as he untucked himself from his curled up position. His hair was a loose fall of heavy silk over his slim shoulders. Julius gave in to the urge to reach for it, sliding his fingers under the bangs Rideaux kept dyed in mimicry of his Chromatus.

Rideaux leaned into his hand for a moment, then batted it away. “I need to look at your back.”

Julius obligingly held still as his partner traced feather-light fingers over his back. “This needs gels,” Rideaux sighed, “If I can’t find any here, you are going to be very unhappy.”

“ _More_ unhappy,” Julius corrected.

“It won’t stop you from moving, though,” Rideaux said, ignoring him. “I’ll see if anyone in this spirit-forsaken town has anything for sale. Either way, we should catch a ride back today.”

Julius contemplated travelling without enthusiasm. “You’re right.”

“Of course I am.” With that rejoinder, Rideaux went to put his shoes on and leave.

Julius sighed, ducking his head. His eyes caught the sheen of light off glass on the floor. Surely that wasn’t his glasses, he thought, and slid his feet onto the floor next to the object, leaning down carefully to pick it up. It was the glass Rideaux had brought back last night, he realized.

Getting up, he set it down on the rickety table next to the half-empty bottle of whiskey. His glasses had been set nearby, with his shirt and coat draped over one of the equally shaky chairs. The shirt was ruined, blood dried to a dark crust all down the back from the gashes. A look at the jacket showed that it had mercifully been spared too many bloodstains- the shirt must have soaked up most of the blood.

Julius rubbed at his face to try and reduce his pounding headache before putting his glasses on. What a night, he thought.

And now he had to go back to Trigleph. Get debriefed, another doctor’s visit, go home to Ludger and reassure his younger brother that he was okay. Another set of scars to hide. Julius sighed again. His life wasn’t going to change just because he wanted it to.

He’d just have to keep moving forward.


End file.
